But in his heart the smooth operator had become very much attached to the wild marshal.
"Life wouldn't be such fun without him," he thought.
And he would glance now and then at Ippolit Matveyevich, whose head was just beginning to sprout a new crop of silvery hair.
Ippolit Matveyevich's initiative was allotted a fair share of the work schedule.
As soon as the placid Ivanopulo had gone out, Bender would try to drum into his partner's head the surest way to get the treasure.
"Act boldly.
Don't ask too many questions.
Be more cynical- people like it.
Don't do anything through a third party.
People are smart.
No one's going to hand you the jewels on a plate.
But don't do anything criminal.
We've got to keep on the right side of the law."
Their search progressed, however, without much success.
The criminal code plus a large number of bourgeois prejudices retained by the citizens of the capital made things difficult.
People just would not tolerate nocturnal visits through their windows, for instance.
The work could only be done legally.
The same day that Ostap visited Ellochka Shukin a new piece of furniture appeared in Ivanopulo's room.
It was the chair bartered for the tea-strainer-their third trophy of the expedition.
The partners had long since passed the stage where the hunt for the jewels aroused strong feelings in them, where they clawed open the chairs and gnawed the springs.
"Even if there's nothing inside," Ostap said, "you must realize we've gained at least ten thousand roubles.
Every chair opened increases our chances.
What does it matter if there's nothing in the little lady's chair?
We don't have to break it to pieces.
Let Ivanopulo furnish his room with it.
It will be pleasanter for us too."
That day the concessionaires trooped out of the little pink house and went off in different directions.
Ippolit Matveyevich was entrusted with the stranger with the bleat from Sadovaya Spasskaya Street; he was given twenty-five roubles to cover expenses, ordered to keep out of beer-halls and not to come back without the chair.
For himself the smooth operator chose Ellochka's husband.
Ippolit Matveyevich crossed the city in a no. 6 bus.
As he bounced up and down on the leather seat, almost hitting his head against the roof, he wondered how he would find out the bleating stranger's name, what excuse to make for visiting him, what his first words should be, and how to get to the point.
Alighting at Red Gates, he found the right house from the address Ostap had written down, and began walking up and down outside.
He could not bring himself to go in.
It was an old, dirty Moscow hotel, which had been converted into a housing co-operative, and was resided in, to judge from the shabby frontage, by tenants who persistently avoided their payments.
For a long time Ippolit Matveyevich remained by the entrance, continually approaching and reading the handwritten notice threatening neglectful tenants until he knew it by heart; then, finally, still unable to think of anything, he went up the stairs to the second floor.
There were several doors along the corridor.
Slowly, as though going up to the blackboard at school to prove a theorem he had not properly learned, Ippolit Matveyevich approached Room 41.
A visiting card was pinned upside-down to the door by one drawing-pin.
Absalom Vladimirovich IZNURENKOV
In a complete daze, Ippolit Matveyevich forgot to knock. He opened the door, took three zombie-like steps forward and found himself in the middle of the room.
"Excuse me," he said in a strangled voice, "can I see Comrade Iznurenkov?"
Absalom Vladimirovich did not reply.
Vorobyaninov raised his head and saw there was no one in the room.
It was not possible to guess the proclivities of the occupant from the outward appearance of the room.
The only thing that was clear was that he was a bachelor and had no domestic help.
On the window-sill lay a piece of paper containing bits of sausage skin.
The low divan by the wall was piled with newspapers.
There were a few dusty books on the small bookshelf.
Photographs of tomcats, little cats, and female cats looked down from the walls.
In the middle of the room, next to a pair of dirty shoes which had toppled over sideways, was a walnut chair.